Sunday, October 7, 2007

Because It's Sunday

It's hard to know where to even start with this...because it's abusrd (which is why I love it)...eh...I'll just cut and paste the relevant info here...thanks AP for doin the heavy lifting.

Scandal Brewing at Oral Roberts U

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said hewas reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."

Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens toengulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes,awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scoresof text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in thelawsuit as "underage males."

[snip...just like the covenant of Abraham]

Among the charges of impropriety and misconduct are these doozies

_ A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friendof Mrs. Roberts could have his position.

_ Mrs. Roberts — who is a member of the board of regents and isreferred to as ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site — frequently hadcell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messagessent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones atuniversity expense."

_ Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico's clothing storealone in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. Shealso repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off."The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage onTV.

_ University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to theRoberts' home to do the daughters' homework.

_ The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusiveuse by the Roberts' children.